@canisblack
The Zahn books always gave me the impression that the Clone Wars weren't a single war, but a set of conflicts over several decades.
@daniels7907
Lucas sprang a lot of surprises on the EU authors. Another big one was the Jedi Order's "no attachments" policy. Because the OT had established that Anakin Skywalker had been married and fathered children, and no mention was made by Obi-Wan or Yoda about this having been forbidden, authors assumed that there were entire Jedi extended families with long histories in the Order and that the Jedi were not as monastic as the PT would establish them as being. There were also lots of little things, like Obi-Wan supposedly keeping a low profile on Tatooine - by wearing what would turn out to be standard Jedi uniform. Also, his apparent age.
@peakethecat7415
This reminds me of an old Star Wars fan theory I once heard about from the original release of "A New Hope", possibly the first major fan theory in the franchise. It was that the Obi-Wan we see in the movie is actually clone with the designation 0B1, which he then changed into his name after the war. Funny how that circled back around into the cannon depiction of the clones, with clones like CT-5555 taking the name "Fives" in the same manor. I think it's an interesting part of the fandom's history for sure.
@wadewilson6628
Well, it's hard to build a whole universe off what was essentially a throwaway line.
@JarrettOriginal
Don't forget the earlier idea of The Emperor as well. In the A New Hope novelization (so before any more than 1 single Star Wars movie was a reality), The Emperor was a decent politician who rose to power and was made Emperor, but then the military performed a quiet coup, setting the Emperor up as a figurehead while men like Tarkin actually ruled the Galaxy. That idea quickly changed in Empire Strikes Back.
@cinemagoose
8:35 One interesting thing I read was that Lucas purposefully named Episode II as "Attack of the Clones" rather than the more accurate "Defense of the Clones" because fans up to that point thought they knew that the Clones were really the antagonists of the Jedi. The title of the film was a mini plot twist that's been all but forgotten by the fandom of today.
@jkx107
I still love the theory that one of Lucas' earlier ideas was that jedi were the clones, supported by C'Baoth later with Zahn's novels. That Obiwan was actually a clone of Ben Kenobi called OB-1; his name spelled like that in the same way Artoo and Threepio get spelled in the novels.
@haraldjensen1839
While I was way too young to think about it the first time I watched Star Wars, on later viewings when I heard about the Clone Wars and Clones in A New Hope I automatically assumed that the Stormtroopers were Clones. It just sort of made sense. Then when I saw the Clone Army in Episode 2 I was like, I KNEW IT! I remember being really shocked the first time I saw on a forum that many people assumed the Clones were on the other side.
@TLhikan
Waiting for an author to slip in a Clone Trooper named Jaango.
@Pellaeon1241
The retcon for Leia in the marvel comic was that she was swapped out for Padme
@pacecory1
see the idea that the clones were the bad guys was actually something I had thought too before the prequels came out
@wybub
I'm glad there's someone covering more of the early speculative history of things in legends we'd later see elaborated on. I've wanted to see more content covering the later retconned or softly rewritten elements about the clone wars, darth vader (pre-anakin reveal) Boba Fett, etc.
@sentrysapper45
Ah, the early Marvel comics. Reading them nowadays is wild, particularly the early ones that only had ANH to go off of (or just a semi-final script of the film for the earliest issues). Anakin and Vader were two separate people, Jabba the Hut (one "t") is a bipedal alien with a walrus-like face, Jaxxon the green alien rabbit makes his debut and, most relevant to this topic, there's an issue set during the Clone Wars featuring a younger Obi-Wan rocking a ripped bod and a black bodysuit. The story itself doesn't reveal much of anything about the state of the galaxy though, as it's set on a space liner under attack by some random pirates. It's a shame that copyright law has been extended so egregiously over the years. I'll be long dead when the Clone Wars era of Star Wars media becomes public domain, and I would love to see what people could do with these alternate takes on the event.
@jordanrutledge4342
In the beginning of The Paradise Snare by A.C. Crispin, there’s a callback to Han being teased as a kid by Garris Shrike and the rest of the crew of the Trader’s Luck after he says he wants to be a pilot when he grows up. Shrike mockingly calls him “Captain Han of the Imperial Navy.” Han Solo was born in 29 BBY and was said in the book to be about 5 years old when this took place. So it would’ve been around 24 BBY; 5 years before the rise of the Empire and even the Clone Wars hadn’t started yet.
@theseekerofancienttruth3873
George also changed the Timeline Multiple Times between ROTJ and TFM, according to Zahn, who has known him for Decades, and who George Commissioned to Write the "Heir to the Empire" Series. in the Metallic-covered 20th-Anniversary Edition of "Heir to the Empire," Zahn reveals George often gave him incorrect dates, times, ages, etc., due to his misremembering Which Version of the Timeline Zahn was supposed to be working with, as he had Already Decided the Dates and was working on TFM when working with Zahn to give him the needed info for the "Heir to the Empire" Series.
@dschehutinefer5627
I always found it funny reading everyone's shocked reaction in Heir to the Empire: "Palpatine had a secret cloning facility?" After the prequels, the reaction would have been more of a "Yeah, makes sense, of course he does!"
@inspector2363
The Weird Al "The Saga Begins" video ended with the humorous suggestion that a Clone army would be based on Obi-Wan.
@SixshotRevan
As a kid, I had a set of Star Wars reference books in the mid 90s. One of them had a single sentence about the clone wars. It said it was a war between the Jedi Knights and "the mysterious Mandalorian warriors."
@jubjub444
After seeing Episode 1 of Star Wars as a kid I thought that the CIS droids would turn into Storm Troopers throughout the prequel trilogy. As a kid I didn't pay attention to Obi Wan talking about clone wars in the OT. So I imagined Episode 2 Droid/storm troopers would look like white skeleton robots lol.
@coreyander286